Today in How Barack Obama Is Killing Everything That Is Good & Decent

Politico, and Politico’s little sister Buzzfeed (that’s the one that combines hard-hitting political coverage with 31 Animated GIFs of Adorable Fucking Kittens Doing Adorable Fucking Things), headline the morning with all of Barack’s Obamanations against humanity besides killing Anwar al-Awlaki, who is apparently the new Mumia.

Freshly minted White House reporters these days are facing a surprising question from many of their fellow D.C. scribes: Why would anyone want that job?

Although often thought of as the most prestigious beat in political journalism, the White House is increasingly seen as a newsless land of “stenographers” — a dead end for young, ambitious reporters hoping to carve out a niche, and a constant target of criticism by the partisan public. Veteran members of the White House press corps bristle at the criticisms, even as they acknowledge the beat has lost some of its allure as the obstacles have increased.

[…]

“It’s not a place that’s easy to generate real scoops. Unlike on Capitol Hill, where you can roam freely and find 535 generally willing sources, plus hundreds of aides, lobbyists, and others, in the White House you face physical and information constraints that make it hard to break out,” Baker, who has been a central figure in the coverage of a Times-reading president, told BuzzFeed. “It can be frustrating and soul-killing to listen to the same talking points and spin sessions day after day.”

What must be really soul-killing is the knowledge that one of the coveted spots covering Congress, where you can button-hole congressmen and bro-fistbump their aides, was handed to lucky sperm club man-child Luke Russert while you’re stuck in the briefing room watching Jay Carney bob and weave. But buck up little troopers, occasionally a White House correspondent breaks a HUGE story and then it is “Hello, CNN show!” with fame and fortune and hookers and blow to follow!

Meanwhile Obama is death-killing Democrats in areas of America that have been gerrymandered into Rorschach-shaped enclaves of gun & Bible-totin’ Hoveround-Americans:

President Barack Obama says he’s ready to do whatever it takes to help Democrats win the House next year — a feat that could make the difference between limping to the end of his presidency and going out with a bang.

But some Democratic candidates and operatives in the districts on which control of the House will hinge said in interviews with POLITICO that the message and issues Obama has emphasized since the election are creating a difficult political headwind for them.

Obama’s political choices, they say, reflect a tone-deafness to the challenges they face competing for moderate and conservative-leaning seats.

[…]

“I think the tone coming out of the White House … could probably be more conciliatory,” said Jim Graves, a Minnesota Democrat who nearly knocked off Rep. Michele Bachmann last year in a suburban Twin Cities district where Obama barely eclipsed 40 percent.

Graves, who’s girding for a rematch against Bachmann next year, added, “There’s no question — Obama has taken a fairly liberal tack in his second term. But I’m not here for the president. I’m here for the people of the 6th Congressional District.”

[…]

Polls consistently show Obama’s positions on issues ranging from immigration to the minimum wage to gun control picking up wide support across the country. But the 2014 battle for the House won’t be fought nationally — it will most likely be decided in several dozen districts, all but a handful of which favor Republicans.

A glance at the national map reveals the extent to which Democrats must play in Republican territory. Of the 28 Republican-held seats that the Cook Political Report designates as the most vulnerable to Democratic takeover, 25 are in districts that tilt toward the GOP and 19 are in districts that Romney won.

So if only Obama would maybe trim his sails a bit more and be more Republican (if that is even possible according to some the front page FDL commenters who are starting to make the people at Free Republic a bit uncomfortable), then some potential Blue Dog Democart in Cletus County could tell his future constituents that, although Obama is a colored guy, he’s “one of the good ones”.